Ask Lemmy

This is a good commentary on it:

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It's good to want to improve the world around you, which can be given a label of patriotism. Going too far down that road leads to lots of unhappiness, though.

In the long run it's dumb and cringe.

Source: I'm American and old.

Does it count as patriotism if you think your country kind of sucks and want to improve it? I suppose many rightwingers are convinced that they are doing exactly that, if only it were actually true ...

The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.

Arthur Schopenhauer

It may a 200 year old quote, but the only thing that has changed is that we have since found even worse things to be proud of.

Only the gullible are proud of their country. The real patriots are critical of the mistakes of the country.

It's hard to comment on the flavors of national pride in nations other than the one I live in, but I think if you're an American patriot, you either 1) are proud of horrendous, immoral things, 2) are proud of a mythologized nation-state that stands for liberty and justice which never actually existed.

My question to hardcore patriots: Why the hell are you so hyped over a place? Especially a place that is governed like dogshit?

I have no idea who Doug Stanhope is but I like this quote:

Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you never met, and to take pride in accomplishments you had no part in.

Never seen it not be an unconvincing cover for racism during my lifetime.

Every single person on the planet just happened to be born in some particular place, and every place has some particular set of people who at some point drew some arbitrary lines and decreed that the area within the lines was a country and gave it a name.

The idea that happening to have been born within the confines of one arbitrary set of lines rather than another is something of which to be proud is blatantly stupid.

It stinks.

You can be proud of the good things your country has done or is doing. So long as you don't forget the laundry list of dodgy shit it has also done.

I liken it to being proud of yourself as a person. You can take pride in yourself and your achievements but you should never forget all the times you fucked up.

Patriotism is the little sibling of nationalism, and the boundaries are fluid. I will never understand why people are proud of other people's accomplishments and make them their own. Or is it because people were shat on somewhere else in the world than everyone else? Makes absolutely no sense.

Patriotism. It’s the food of the wise man but the liquor of the fool.

Patriotism is being proud of being born and grown up in a certain random place.

This is what is left for those who never achieved anything worthy of being proud of on their own.

I tend to agree with Schopenhauer(other than it sounding quite arrogant/condescending the way he puts it…):

The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.

I have some national pride, usually about small things that I know my country cares overly much about and some cultural quirks I care about (how to serve coffee, the structure of a conversation, obscure literary references and so on).

I have some patriotism, as in: I want my country to be the best version of itself it can be. Keeping the good parts (not many) and evolving the rest.

Then, I am very cynical, so the little patriotism is submerge by a distant distaste and expectation of everything to fuck up.

(European here)

I believe true patriotism isn't just about loving your country, it's about holding it accountable to its ideals. I love America deeply, and I honor those who sacrificed to uphold its founding principles. But I also see how words like 'freedom' and 'patriotism' have been misused, often twisted into tools for division or control. To me, being a patriot means seeking truth, learning from history, and speaking out when those values are betrayed. It's about striving to make the country better, not pretending it’s perfect.

My take is that patriotism is a corruption of the feeling of belonging we get from community.

I quite like regionalism that doesn't align with national borders. An example would be "limburgers" have a strong shared identity, even as parts of it lie in Belgium, and parts of it lie in the Netherlands.

Fundamentally it comes down to this question, I think: people tend to like to be around people that've shared a same background, is that ok? And to what degree?

I was raised around a lot of "patriotism" (closet nationalism) and have had to adapt the feeling now that I understand better what America actually is and has been. I found that trying to abandon the feeling altogether was making me feel cynical and alone. The parts of America that I love in fact tend to exist despite our government and dominant culture, which steals and appropriates the things I love about us and turns them into the things people know about us and dislike for good reason. I love the source materials, not the end result. As a white person born into privilege on stolen land, my existence is not entirely apart from this, but all's I can do with that is try to make something better of it.

There's a salt-of-the-earth working-class segment of this country that's getting screwed over, knows how and why they and others are getting screwed over, and has learned to survive together in spite of it. People that make families out of communities. Rail hoppers, union organizers, queer punks, the list goes on. That spirit is not unique to this country but there do exist uniquely American forms of it. I'm more proud of these people than words can express, and that's about as close to patriotic as I can feel these days.

Maybe I just like seeing our shitty protestant labor worship turned to something more productive. Maybe I just spent too much time in the mountains to not fall in love with the land itself. Or maybe I just love banjos.

Dangerous.

I don't like nationalism. You don't have to appeal to people's pride for things that are good.

Nationalism (and by extension patriotism) was an amazing tool to bring people together in a nation, when coming from a past of small kingdoms, city states and similar smaller communities.

Now it's done it's job and it's time we get past that.

It all depend on how you define patriotism. Honestly, I think Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem is the most patriotic act ever. He knew people would hate him for it, but he did it anyways because he took a hard look at his own country and decided we needed to do better.

wanting your country to be better if the only valid patriotism.

thinking you're better because some arbitrary borders might as well be a mental disease.

To all the people just reposting famous quotes: congrats you misunderstood the lesson: think for yourself more please

Nationalism is tribalism in the modern day, and is just as destructive and irrational

Vicarious pride in achievements one never participated in, like sports teams but a lot deadlier

It has split families, forced neighbor to kill neighbor, collapsed nations and serves no purpose in the modern world and the ones that shout it loudest are the worst dangers to world peace

It'll fuck your country up real bad.

Pride, no prejudice

Much of the time, patriotism leads to nationalism, and therefore xenophobia and racism. How could it not? If you think your country is great, you need to find ways to justify that belief, and when facts don't get the job done, the next steps are lying and stereotyping.

Chauvinism?

It's literally a sin. Stop it.

first off, we need to drop this false dichotomy between arbitrary words like patriotism and nationalism. it's not as simple as "good vs bad" or "moderate vs excess". you're talking about two completely different points of pride.

nationalism is pride in a shared identity between people; patriotism is pride in the state of a country. and you ask for my opinion: both are bullshit.

I like how someone referenced schopenhauer. I prefer Sartre. In "antisemite and jew" he wrote about how the bigot, by putting down another group, instantly promotes himself into a group of the chosen ones, the good guys -- all without doing anything.

that's what pride in a group identity often does. elevates yourself based on the accomplishments of others. it's a substitute for character.

HOWEVER we cannot dismiss all collective pride this way. when a group we actually belong to and contribute to actually does something good, why not be proud of it? the trouble is, the more people you involve in this collection, the less any single individual needs to actually DO to contribute.

that's why I honestly believe nationalism is less toxic than patriotism: because there can be many smaller groups (nationalism) within a country (patriotism).

the anarchist perspective is that a nation is a PEOPLE and the state is a parasite. patriotism is pride in the state, not the people. why be proud of tapeworms?

I don't attribute anthropomorphism to a country. Improve your environment(mental/physical/emotional), help others; systems of government can come and go.

Id rather be happy than loyal to a fault.

anthropomorphism /ăn″thrə-pə-môr′fĭz″əm/

noun

Attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.

The representation of the Deity, or of a polytheistic deity, under a human form, or with human attributes and affections.

The ascription of human characteristics to things not human.

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